The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

Continued from page 3

Michael Tobias: Do you see unique job niches for this next generation of so-called solutionaries, who have had humane training?

Zoe Weil: Some of our graduates are entrepreneurs who are creating humane education-oriented businesses. We’re still building the market for the field, but there are more and more opportunities for humane educators all the time.

Michael Tobias: Share with us some success stories?

Zoe Weil: Michael, after the very first week-long humane education class I taught in the summer of 1987, two students started a Philadelphia area-wide group and won awards for their activism. A few years ago I was giving a talk in New York, and one of them attended. He was working for the mayor of New York City in public health. After the talk, I introduced him to some friends as having taken the first humane education course I ever taught. Before I could finish my sentence he interjected, “That course changed my life!”

Michael Tobias: That's wonderful!

Zoe Weil: More recently, I received a packet of thank you letters from 8th graders whom I taught each morning over the course of a week. One wrote, “Spending that week with you was the most inspiring 5 days of my life so far. You made me realize how much just one person can do to help the world and how much more we can do by educating others....” The letter went on about what she planned to do with her new knowledge. I felt so great when I first read her letter, but later I came to see it as pretty depressing. Spending a week with me, or any humane educator, shouldn’t be the most inspiring 5 days of a teenager’s life. Her education should always have been inspiring, relevant, and meaningful. Another girl, who heard me speak at her National Honor’s Society induction, exclaimed after the talk, “We should have been learning this since Kindergarten!” This is exactly right.

Zoe Weil: It was obvious to me from the very beginning of my career as a humane educator that this work had the potential to create profound and lasting change if we could just embrace it fully as an educational goal. I could tell you so many success stories about the impact our graduates are having in their classrooms and communities, but my hope is that soon we won’t need to talk about success stories because humane education will be the norm, infusing all curricula, taught in every school, and ushering in a solutionary generation.

Michael Tobias: This definitely puts any future education debates, let alone any legislation, into a whole new realm of compelling possibility, and plausibility.

Zoe Weil: Just imagine what would happen if every child learned about relevant global issues and examined the underlying production, agricultural, defense, transportation, energy, economic, political, and other ubiquitous systems so that they could use their great minds and big hearts to explore innovative approaches that maximize justice, sustainability, and peaceful coexistence.

Michael Tobias: Indeed. Yes.

Zoe Weil: Imagine our students participating not just in debate teams, but also in solutionary teams that demand that they come up with practical, cost-effective, and viable ideas for solving problems instead of just arguing about who’s right and wrong. When humane education is integrated into our schools, every child will graduate ready and able to ensure that the systems within their chosen professions are healthy and humane, and when that happens we will witness a profound transformation as we solve the challenges we face and build a more humane and sustainable world.